sayonara goodbye
by Ju5t An0th3r H3d63h06
Summary: it's not forever, you know. —Jack enrolls in Otai Academy. au, oneshot. {for luxxen}


**a/n:** this started as a joke and spiraled into the biggest cliché of the fandom. (i am not sorry.)  
**a/n2:** yea i have 100% Never Been To Japan which probably makes me 200% Weaboo and 500% Disowned By A Fandom I'm Not Even In for attempting to write something like this. (rina helped me out a lot because she has 100% Actually Been To Japan, but any mistakes or misinterpretations are exclusively my fault.)  
**disclaimer:** i own exactly nothing. u w u

* * *

sayonara;goodbye

* * *

The letter is in Kim's hands before Jack can do anything about it aside from performing the universal hand gesture for "oooOOOHMYGODNO" in Rudy's direction; his oblivious sensei misinterprets the gesture as some type of goodbye symbol and waves jauntily in his direction from the dojo's doorway.

"Kim, I…" _I can't lie to you._

Jack's ready-made excuse dissolves, and he wishes nothing more than to disappear (before a small voice reminds him that _technically, you are going to disappear _and it literally takes everything he has to not renege his decision and so he barely notices when Kim holds out her hand and there's something in it—

"—That's…okay. I did the same thing."

She smiles hesitantly at him and hands him a plain envelope with his name neatly written on it, and suddenly all he can think is _crap, I totally should have written neater_ instead of _what's the quickest way to strangle Rudy with his own gi_. "There are some things I want you to know, so I wrote them down."

Tentatively, Jack lifts the envelope from the hand of his best friend, cementing the fact that there is no going back. Kim looks almost as nervous as he feels, scuffing one flat against the ground as she watches him unzip his carry-on and carefully stow it inside.

"You…don't read that until you're on the plane, okay?"

"I won't if you won't."

And maybe that's just what they needed, an unspoken acknowledgment of all the things that are about to be left unsaid between the two of them, because all of a sudden they're hugging and Jack is burying his face in Kim's hair and Kim is wrapping her arms around Jack's torso (and it's not a thanks-for-saving-my-life thing or a sparring-hold-gone-wrong thing or a sorry-i-ruined-your-dance thing, it's a goodbye thing and it's final and it's _not okay._)

"I'm going to miss you, you idiot."

"I…I'll miss you too, Kim."

Jack tries to carve every single detail of his best friend into his memory, but all he can do is stare at her face and pray to every single god from Allah to Zeus that he won't forget about her like one of the guys from the stupid chick flicks she would marathon sometimes (and then he realizes that's a pretty irrational fear, because he couldn't forget about her if he tried.)

"Don't look so down, geez! There's a _waffle bar!"_

Kim quirks a grin and elbows him halfheartedly in the side. Jack smirks and responds with a quip about how he'll make sure to eat a stack just for her when he gets to Otai. They fall quickly back into their usual pattern of banter, and it's just like any other conversation-slash-argument-slash-competition they've ever had (except for the fact that there won't be another one quite like this for three years and both parties are trying very hard to ignore that.)

A car horn honks from the street.

"You…you should go."

"Y-yeah."

They're standing together but they're miles apart, and Jack steels his resolve against the emptiness threatening to overtake him.

* * *

He turns back, once, and Kim is waving back at him with the letter still clutched in her right hand. Unexpectedly, tears prick the corners of his eyes, but he schools his expression into a determined grin and waves back before hauling his carry-on into the trunk.

* * *

"You okay?" asks his dad. Jack nods once, swiping the checkered plaid sleeve of his shirt across his face.

* * *

He chokes when the plane linking him to the only home he's ever known takes off. The stewardess offers him a ginger ale.

* * *

Think coming to a new school is hard? Try arriving at one where you don't know a word of the language being spoken by your teachers and classmates, not to mention most of the outside world.

Jack deduces (correctly) that his schooling experience in Japan will be nonexistent if he does not pick up this language, and quickly. He stays quiet in most of his classes and begins to pick out frequently-used expressions from the ebb and flow of conversations all around him. (Supplementary classes at the college across the street prove much more helpful after he acquires a permit; they come with the added bonus of a teacher whose homework assignments he can actually understand.)

* * *

A few weeks into the second semester, the usual huddle of gossips converged around the front of the classroom start asking each other what kind of shit dojo is called Bobby Wasabi, and he snarls back at them in flawlessly accented Japanese to _shut the actual hell up because I will beat you to within an inch of your life_ and the entire class simultaneously comes to the realization that _yes hello! person speaks! and most likely understands a good portion of what you have been saying about him for most of the year!_

(The rumors fly thick. They don't reach his ears anymore.)

* * *

Over the weekends, Jack goes exploring. He discovers hole-in-the-wall eateries and karaoke bars and internet cafés; sometimes by accident, sometimes through the encouragement of his suitemates (who have also taken to psychoanalyzing his homework and helping him out here and there.) He tries okonomiyaki and red bean buns and udon and croquettes with tonkatsu sauce, and he rides the magnet trains all the way down the main line just to see where they lead. The handful of people he has come to associate with become his friends, and they remind him that he is never truly alone.

* * *

He invests in a camera. He also buys a 3DS and the latest Pokemon game under the guise of Japanese practice, but it's a video game and his suitemates produce their own gaming platforms soon afterwards and all of a sudden suite 4-E becomes the Place To Be on Saturday nights. It's nice to have people besides his roommates acknowledge his existence, but it's also not conducive to studying, so he spends most Saturday nights on the common floor and is soon regarded by most of the female population as a mysterious loner.

Politely and with grace, he refuses all dates, and he reads the letter until its ink fades and its edges fray.

* * *

The homesickness fades as time flies by, driven by the hectic cycle of _work school homework tutoring tv? sleep_, but the _missing_ is still there. It's a dull ache embedded in his side, and it always seems to happen when he's about to drift off to bed—because the lights outside his dorm window only serve to remind him of another city that never sleeps.

* * *

"The Wasabi Dojo…that's where you trained, right?"

"_Bobby_ Wasabi." Jack shoves open the closet door and barely manages to evade the onslaught of clothes from the top shelf, scowling as a sweatshirt almost engulfs him. "Hiroki, I have to ask. Do you ever put your laundry away?"

"That's beside the point! Check it out!" Jack's roommate blatantly ignores the disdain that the older male is radiating, gesturing with a pencil to the screen of the laptop wedged precariously amidst a sea of loose-leaf paper. "They won another tournament today!"

"I know," responds Jack quietly, pretending not to notice his roommate's expression as he holds up a pair of pants with two fingers. "These better not be from last week's wash."

* * *

The Otai Academy fight song is playing somewhere in the ether of Jack's mind as he ties his tie in front of the mirror. Hiroki is wearing half of a shirt and one sock and yelling at their other roommate to hurry the hell up because they're going to be late for graduation, and all he can think about is how it's been Four Actual Years and _wow that's a long time_ and (RAY WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL ASLEEP MOVE IT THE CEREMONY IS IN TEN AND—BLUE IS ALREADY _THERE,_ ARE YOU KIDDING ME) and they're late to convocation and late to the ceremony and Jack dazedly registers the fact that a teacher who he didn't know existed is lecturing him in Japanese _and_ in English for arriving fifteen minutes late (without Starbucks, no less) and suddenly there's a diploma in his hands and a call waiting for him back in the office which is his dad asking about flight details. (There's a strange sense of déjà vu to it all which he doesn't really appreciate, so he and Ray and Hiroki and Blue plug in the Wii and the controllers that were supposed to have been packed last week and play video games and eat the rest of the snacks in the fridge that was supposed to have been emptied yesterday and swap creepy stories and actual life goals and slightly enigmatic past lives, and they all fall asleep on the floor and on sleeping bags dreaming of tomorrow and wishing for the past.)

* * *

"Best student we've had in years," says one of the teachers.

Jack doesn't hear it because he's laughing in exasperation as Blue ruffles his hair and Hiroki exchanges addresses and Ray proclaims that if Jack doesn't trade him an American Vivillon, he's getting disowned, to which Blue points out that game versions don't change automatically thanks to a plane ride and inadvertently causes an argument that would have been more appropriate for five-year-olds. ("You're a stupid head!")

* * *

And then suddenly he's a million miles across the world, and he wonders whether leaving has always been this painful.

* * *

The flight lands early. Jack barely manages to snatch his stuff from the overhead bin before he becomes another unknown in the sea of people spilling from the plane; the only distinguishing factor between him and them is that he is returning home for the first time in three and a half years. And that alone is enough to terrify him.

Jack's phone buzzes, shaking him out of his scattered thoughts, and he digs it out of his pocket with one hand while hauling a battered suitcase off the conveyor belt with the other. It's his dad, offering a ride, and despite the fact that all of Jack's better judgment is telling him to go home and sleep off the flight, he poses the question anyway.

"Can you drop me off near the dojo? There's…someone I want to see."

* * *

It's mostly the same as he remembers it. The beat-up couch and the TV and the weird waiting-area type seating are still there; but on the other hand, there's a keypad instead of a locked door where Rudy's "office" used to be. (Not only that, but it's an _official _office, with a placard and everything.) The practice mats are new and not neon, the equipment has received upgrades, and there's a buzzer near the door with a notice posted above it. Jack presses it once before catching sight of the mural covering the wall he once crashed through on a skateboard. Peering closer, he picks out his teammates' names painted unobtrusively inside the circular dojo crest amongst a slew of others. A wave of nostalgia strikes, and he wonders where everyone is now.

* * *

He doesn't have long to wait. Two sets of footsteps echo noisily from the lockers, and the sound of conversation carries into the dojo's main room.

"I'm telling you, teaching little kids isn't so bad! You just have to know how to handle them."

"And_ I'm_ telling _you,_ that afternoon group is completely insane. Does the incident where you forgot to hide the bo sticks ring any bells?"

"Seriously? That was one time, man!"

Jack trains one eye on the door and takes a step away from the mural, but freezes in place as soon as he sees two of his best friends emerge from the back.

"All I'm gonna say is that your class is probably the sole reason this place has so many dents in the—shit." Jerry stops mid-sentence and winces as he catches sight of Jack standing near the mural, continuing at a lower volume. "I think that's the guy who rung the bell. You think he saw the names?"

"Well, if he didn't know about them then, he definitely knows about them now," says Eddie, although it sounds more resigned than sarcastic. "Nice one."

Jack responds with the first thing that comes to mind. "What, you mean you guys weren't supposed to do that?"

"Not really." Eddie scratches the back of his head sheepishly, making it a little easier for Jack to see the personality of his old friend in the stranger standing before him. "We'd really appreciate if you didn't tell Rudy—"

"Eddie." Jerry cuts him off with a look, and the shorter male does a double take.

"Hold up. You're…"

"Jack," finishes Jerry, and Eddie's jaw drops for a second before he yells, "GUYS! IT'S JACK!"

"Are you kidding me?" yells someone back from the office, and all of a sudden a sea of voices and questions surrounds him even though only two more people have entered the fray.

"Holy shit! It _is_ Jack!"

"I thought you were coming back tomorrow!"

"Yeah, we had a surprise party planned and everything—"

"—IDIOT."

"You're an absolute moron, Milton, Kim planned this whole thing—"

"Aw shit, she is so going to beat me up—"

"Who's filming?"

"How much you paying me?"

Jack laughs, mostly to hide the fact that he can't say anything or he might choke. This roomful of strangers have the personalities of his closest friends, and he's having a hard time registering that Eddie is taller than him now (and sporting a brown belt, of all things) and Jerry is still loud and prone to swears in Spanish but he carries himself like a fighter instead of a fast talker and Milton is still wearing a sweater vest except it makes him look like a teacher instead of a nerd and Rudy's hair is streaked with spots of silver but he's still the same offbeat teacher from three years ago and—and everyone's older and wiser and (battle-scarred?) and it's trippy to see all at once—

* * *

The door to the dojo opens, and someone sticks their head in.

* * *

"I can hear you guys from all the way outside. Did the kids flush another bo stick down the toilet?"

"I thought we agreed to never bring that up again!" yells Eddie, and uproarious laughter from most of the gang ensues.

"I don't care. I am _not _fishing for it," says Kim, stepping into the dojo and shaking her head in Eddie's direction. "You know exactly where the plunger is—_Jack?"_

"Hi," tries Jack, waving weakly.

"You're here," replies Kim in a sort of strangled-sounding voice. "Wow. I. Um. Wasn't expecting that."

"Spar with me?" Jack offers, because it's about the only thing he knows how to say at this point (because she's _Kim_ and she's the same Kim he knew before except she's _different_ (she's totally the same person except she's grown into the rough edges she used to have and adopted them as part of _her,_ she's confident and radiant and a total stranger who he happens to know inside and out) and he's well aware of just how stupid that sounded in his head, thanks—)

* * *

Their familiar sparring rhythm reinstates itself like always, and Jack is beginning to think that it was probably a good thing that he paid attention in class because Kim is using some of those moves in ways that he has literally never seen put into practice. Her fighting style has evolved into something like carefully-aimed attacks combined with fearsome defense, and matching her attacks is taking a lot of energy that was probably left back on the fifteen-hour flight from Japan.

Five minutes later, Rudy declares a draw because Jack and Kim are both inhaling oxygen like it's water and he would rather not see two of his best fighters stretched out on the floor.

* * *

They meet in the middle of the mat.

* * *

"That was fun."

"Y-yeah. It was."

* * *

"Oh my god, you two are so dense," stage-whispers Jerry from behind them. Milton counters with a loud yell of "That's cheating, you imbecile!" and Eddie tries and fails to resolve the argument, which apparently hinges on some sort of betting pool.

"Some things haven't changed," observes Jack, watching the scuffle.

"More like I can't believe there was a betting pool," responds Kim with a snort, and Jack reels from the sudden realization of how much he missed _this_—the banter and camaraderie, the misadventures that centered around the dojo, the memories of his home away from home—and it almost swamps him, but then Kim grins and elbows him and asks if he's going soft on them; and he scoffs, turns and realizes that she's kind of _RightThere_ and (wow um that was unexpected) he tilts his head down the slightest bit—

"FIFTY BUCKS, LOSER," says Milton, holding out his hand triumphantly. Jerry swears profusely, and another argument begins in the background.

"..Um." Jack stuffs a hand into the pocket of his jeans and stares at his sneakers, suddenly acutely aware of every wrinkle in his shirt and just how much of a mess his hair is. "Is that pizza place still open?"

"They sell bubble tea now!" Kim's eyes light up excitedly. "You should try it!"

"DO NOT TRY IT," replies Rudy almost instantly. "Contrary to popular belief, there are no bubbles in it."

"He's insufferable," says Kim. "Were you attempting to ask me out?"

"I was," says Jack, "but now I'm thinking I should stay far away from bubble tea."

"You're insufferable too." Kim pouts at him.

"I'm not going," says Jack stubbornly.

"_You_ asked me out, genius."

"Do they sell red bean bubble tea?"

"_JACK."_

* * *

They leave holding hands, and don't look back.

* * *

_.en fin._


End file.
